333 hours, or: The time it takes to pilfer a goat
by Albernheit
Summary: A Dark Lordling questions his stratagems. Are they supposed to do that? One-shot. Rated T for offensive syntax, Bad Words and explicit mention of Bad Things.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Who would have thought?

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><p>333 Hours or: The time it takes to pilfer a goat<p>

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><p><em>333:<em>

First things first: We are here. Collect yourself. Put your face on. Now we give the rat a chance to prove us wrong. When he fails we kill him.

_321:_

Miss Hermine Sonnenschein-Krull of Lübeck, Germany, was a nice, serious und pleasantly average German girl. She had two thick, light brown braids and round blue eyes that made her look even nicer that she was. Her maternal Grandmother was from Newcastle. One paternal great-grandfather had been from Cardiff. Her parents, having finally recognised the writing on the wall for what it was, had used their ties to their British relatives to get the hell out of Germany. Happy as she was about coming to Britain, the prospect of two school years of silly jokes about her surname was not a happy one. But she was an optimist. She resolved there and then to see it as a character building experience.

_320:_

Interview with the Headmaster. Miss Sonnenschein had once, in a biography of Elisabeth I. in fact, who, apparently, had been adopting her executed mother's motto as her own, a thought that never failed to touch poor Hermine, who could be quite sentimental about a number of things, read about personal mottos. She approved of the idea. They sounded like a respectable version of those tattoos her older cousins were always going on about. She felt that a motto would have to be chosen carefully. She had therefore compiled a list of possibly appropriate mottos from which she would randomly choose one every couple of days, to apply, or at least meditate on.

Her current motto was: **Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat**. It wasn't a bad motto, honestly.

Headmaster Dippet had used a battered old hat to tell her that she would be sorted into Gryffindor and then called the Transfiguration Professor and current Head of that house. That gentleman had piercing blue eyes, long auburn hair and a long, auburn beard of peculiarly old-fashioned trim for someone as young as he was. The chartreuse velvet suit, however, was nice. Gaudy. Anyway, she had other things to worry about. Like finally attending a school, a boarding school even, with new classmates who had lived and studied together for four years already! Surely that prospect would worry any formerly home-schooled girl. Wouldn't it? She really hoped it would work out well. School would be great. All those people in her own age to spend time with.

Professor Dumbledore smiled kindly and hastened to ease her unvoiced fears:

"Welcome to Hogwarts, Miss Sonnenschein. I will now escort you to Gryffindor tower and introduce you the the prefects. I believe that you will be feeling at home here in no time at all.

Hermine beamed at her new Professor: He had gotten her name absolutely right!

_314:_

Professor Dumbledore had been quite right. The fifth-year prefect, a stocky athletic blonde called Jonah Prewitt introduced her to everyone in the Common Room, which gave her a chance to learn the names of people who wouldn't be her class mates. Hermine liked that. She was curious about everyone, and everyone, it seemed, was courious about her: Where was she from (Lübeck), where is that (Bay of Lübeck, Baltic Sea), where was that? (er...), and so on. Had she attended Durmstrang or another German school (Durmstrang wasn't in Germany, and no school at all, she had had tutors). What was her family name again, did she have any relatives in Britain?

Hermine, a little overwhelmed with all that attention, did not answer at once.

"I asked if you had any relatives in Britain," repeated the tall, thin girl with the coppery hair.

"What? Oh, sorry, I am getting a little confused here. Who are you, again?" Hermine asked in return, sounding indeed a little flustered.

"I am Minerva Cameron," the thin girl said dissaprovingly. Dissaproving of whom, Hermine wondered nervously.

"Sixth year prefect," the girl added.

Well, she's introduced herself now, Hermine thought. Where proper manners really that difficult?

"I have grandparents from Newcastle and Cardiff, respectively, though quite a few of my British relatives live in London, nowadays."

"English and Welsh, hm?" Read: No Scots. "I know a couple of families from Newcastle. Do I know yours? What is your Grandfather's name?"

Hermine did not look daggers at this interogation because that would have been a distinctly un-Hermine-ish thing to do. Also, she had noticed the silence around them. All of her new housemates wanted to hear those answers, not just the grim redhead. Hermine sighed a little. She couldn't blame them, could she?

"My Grandfather was called Honeyfoot and had no sons. His daughters married into..."

Dutifully, she listed all of her relevant relatives' names. No really big names there, but her enumeration caused several people to nod in recognition. Not Cameron, though, who seemed to be formulating further questions. Hermine sighed, she knew what was coming:

"If you are worried about the possibility that my family supports that nutter Grindelwald, this delightful ministry of yours examined our case very thoroughly before they gave us permission to settle." She wasn't cross, not at all. If anything, she sounded apologetic for having caused trouble to the Ministry of Magic, Minerva decided, and let go.

Soon the conversation resumed.

_260:_

Hogwarts pupils were divided into four houses the moment they arived there in their first year. Inter-house communication, however, was greatly valued. Houses shared classes, two houses at a time, and it was not always the same houses in one class. The combinations changed every forthnight, too. Staff and students had self-updating timetables that kept them up to date.

This communication thing was something of a pet project of Headmaster Dippet's, Jonah had told her, Dippet having gone so far as to acquire a demon which organised classes and allocated rooms according to each year's syllabus. Hogwarts Castle allows for a connection between the current Headmaster of the school and the enchantements of the building. Headmaster Dippet could interface building and demon, thus enabling the latter to actually arrange the classrooms along optimised dormitory-Great-Hall-classroom routes. All that work was repeated twice a month and executed faultlessly. Of course, the demon had to be fed, but if that was messy, then so be it. Headmaster Dippet maintained that running the school efficiently was of greater importance than personal discomfort.

Hermine heartily approved, unless it was the other way around, English syntax was so confusing, sometimes. Ancient enchanted buildings like Hogwarts Castle had a tendency to develop independent personalities. Centuries of magic performed in and around the building, the link to each Headmaster, the thousands of pupils growing up, learning, practicing spells there. The proximity to the Forbidden Forest and its magical creatures, too. It all left traces. Traces that accumulated, influenced each other and, in time, formed indipendent personalities. That were always, _always_ mischievious. What was it with buildings and their sense of humour, if humour was what it was. Or maybe it was a stone thing. Anyway. There was no imagining the chaos that would ensue if, say, the staircases were allowed to move around as they wished. Students would never get to class in time! If they arrived in class at all. Sufficiently old buildings did go rogue like that. Yet, people actually worried about this innovative and elegant solution . Sacrilege, some of them said. Dangerous, claimed others. Eli Prewitt, two years younger than his brother and as chatty as they come, belonged to the latter group.

"It's supposed to be sitting in a case with sigils all over it, but still, it's a demon! Imagine what it will do if it ever gets out!"

This discussion took place in the Great Hall, which was populated at all times. All meals were taken there, of course, but outside meal times it was open for students who wanted to do their homework there. There was a schedule for these hours, too, to ensure the presence of at least two prefects and a professor. The Professors were advised to encourage students to work in mixed groups, and those groups were often enough eager to continue working together after classes. Supervision of the Great Hall was also organised by the clever little demon, and Hermine, fond as she was of communication, her limbs and life in her native dimension felt called upon to defend the critter against preconceptions:

"Calculating a whole school's schedule is insane work, a rotating one like Hogwarts's even more so. Additionaly, demons make no mistakes, work faster than we could and require nothing but clean, well-aired cases to sit in and a bug every now and then," she recited. It was useles:

"Beetles! They drink fresh chickens' blood! And only because they are contained by runes, and who knows how secure they are! And imagine how angry an escaped demon would be!"

"Bugs," Hermine repeated patiently. "I visited the Paris Museum of Discrete Demonics only last year. They have a wonderful collection of embedded demons, and the curator explained their feeding habits in great detail. They eat bugs. And a millipede, every now and then. I saw two of the demons being fed, too. It is only a little messy and the curator said that the worst a loose demon would do is to return to its own dimension and let you calculate your stuff yourself. Anyway, no one but a living chicken needs chicken's blood, and chicken get eaten quite frequently, so even if the demons wanted that-"

"I think your new friend is of too practical a turn of mind to be frightened, Eli" a new voice interupted them.

Hermine didn't know the newcomer. Her age, more or less, she thought, looking him over. Male, tall, dark, pale. Hermine felt her blushing-function kick in. Attractive people made her feel ever so deficient.

"Oh, hi Tom." Eli was obviously delighted. "Hermine, have you met Tom?"

"I don't think so," Hermine said a little stiffly. Obviously she hadn't, or she would have greeted him herself, wouldn't she?

"Tom Riddle, Slytherin fifth year prefect," Tom introduced himself before Eli could do it.

"We haven't met in lessons, yet, but we will, in potions tomorrow," he added.

"Do you memorise the timetables even though they are temporary," Hermine asked, looking, as she always did, straight into the eyes of the person with whom she conversed. It was only polite.

Riddle, who might have had a different view on that, held her gaze easily: "The badge means that I am supposed to be able to help my fellow students, Miss, er-"

"Sonnenschein. Hermine Sonnenschein. Are you supposed to help them if they can't read their timetables?" The question got out before she could bite her silly tongue.

"She answers to Sunshinecrab," Eli interjected, possibly because he had interpreted her last question as rude.

"Sorry, Eli, it is a funny name but not that funny. It's a double name, the second part of which is Krull, not Krill. And I don't use it, anyway."

"Pitty. It would be easier on us poor Britons." Riddle said. "And the first part is really Sunshine?"

Hermine blushed: "We can't all be as mysterious as you, Mr. Riddle," she said, wishing for the floor to do something useful, for once, damn it.

"Please call me-" Tom started, but Eli piped in again:

"But he is not mysterious!"

Hermine sensed the oncoming eulogy and hastened to cut it off: "He's just perfect, I know. I've even heard the perfect-prefect joke. None of the sights of Hogwarts has been left out, I just haven't talked to all of them yet." She smiled at Tom, who, in her opinion, had something of an frightening ...something. Right, that was her inferiority complex overreacting. Bad complex!

"What I actually wanted to say is that I find perfection to be a rather mysterious commodity, myself."

Riddle regarded her with mild interest: "Unlike embedded demons, which are perfectly harmless, even if they did require fresh blood? I've heard about the Museum in Paris. Did you enjoy the exhibits?"

"As much as I can enjoy exhibits about Discrete Demonics. Other than the demon cases it was too high-brow for me, to tell you the truth."

Riddle, no: Tom smiled at that.

"Discrete Demonics! What is that supposed to be, anyway?" another new voice barged in. It was not a pleasant voice, and Hermine wasn't the only student in Hall who gave a start.

"Miss Sunhine, this is Cygnus Black of Slytherin. Cygnus, this is Hermine Sunshine, the new fifth year Gryffindor student. Will you answer my friend, Miss Sunshine, or shall I do it?"

"I will attempt an explanation and you can correct me if you disagree. Discrete Demonics is basically a mix of different disciplines. Think of it as very advanced but highly specialised Arithmancy with a splash of Runes and a little dash of Magical Creatures. Unless you prefer more Creatures and less Runes in your Arithmancy, if you will forgive me the mixed drink metaphor." she explained.

Someone giggled. Hermine looked around: Minerva, of all people.

"Dash, splash. Go easy on the the booze, Sunshine. This is a school, after all."

"Sorry Minnie. I thought that the cocktail metaphor would make it easier."

"Cocktail! I thought you looked as if you had a lot of muggle habbits." sneered Black.

There was a silence like a Great-Hall-sized group of people collectively rolling their eyes . Cygnus looked around. What? They hadn't paid proper attention to him! They should! Everyone did! Was it possible that he had made an ass of himself? And what if he had? Everyone did. Sometimes. Why was everyone avoiding his eyes like that? Was that a snort? He turned sharply and looked at Riddle. Riddle's face was a study in benevolent nonchalance.

One or two people sniggered. This wasn't the first time that Black had thrown his weight around and hit something with it, but for some intangible reason today it was funny rather than intimidating.

A small amount of aggressive snobbery will go a long way. In any direction, and sometimes in all at once.

_254:_

Tom was in the library. He had wanted to look into restricting sigils, check a couple of thoughts he'd had after that discussion today, but... Sunshine seemed nice enough, pitty she hadn't enough of a brain to remember anything useful from the museum in Paris. He really wanted to go there, someday, but preferably soon... This book was too general, too many directions, no details... How strange, people had actually expected him to do something for Cygnus. Do what for Cygnus? Prevent him from pissing on everybody's good mood? That was what Cygnus did, or was, or whatever, Tom did not feel like wasting time with this when there was so much else to do, as always, but even though nothing special had happened everything had changed in one bloody instant, and why?

Tom forced himself to concentrate on chapter 3, steles. Chapter 4, hermes, and chapter 5, botanical arrangements. He flipped through the book. Architecture, cabinets, trunks, mirrors. No boxes, cascets, amulets, nothing that could be carried around. At least he knew where not to look again. Tom returned the book to its place and made his directly way to the dungeons.

Enlightenment struck: Cygnus had looked bad. Those Black good looks and arrogant cool had slipped for a long moment or two. Interesting, Tom thought. It certainly made sense that an attractive, smart person would have more leverage that a stuttering idiot. Or that an attractive person would get away with more idiocy than a plain one. He supposed he had always known that. But, and this was the important difference, he had not been aware of it. So, who was attractive enough to get a slip for blunders? And what was the limit to that slip? What was so off limits that even Cygnus Black could not say it... no, that wasn't right. Couldn't be right. Many wizards from old families spoke disparagingly of Muggle influences and got more than away with it.

Walking back to the dungeons Tom observed the faces of the people he passed. Were there secrets in them? He thought of people as easy. Easily read, easily satisfied, easily led. The first face he saw in Slytherin Common Room was Parkinson's: Nervous. Nott's: Calculating. Crabbe's: Confused. Black's: Livid.

_140:_

Events eventuated. No-one outside Slytherin was sure of something, but many felt, suspected, reckoned... something. Wanted to know. As a sixth year Reavenclaw put it, one did wish the snakes wouldn't deprive the rest of them of their gossip. Everyone else shared, after all.

_27:_

"You all right, Riddle?"

Riddle didn't turn. She had finally found him on the Astronomy Tower, the place to be if you wanted to get the most out of the Highland cold.

"I wish you would share that warming charm of yours. The ones I know only make the cold laugh," Hermine tried again.

Nothing.

"If you don't want me to call the Infirmarian you will have to show a sign of life. Now."

He shook his shoulders, or the wind rattled his frozen form, she couldn't say.

"Well, at least you aren't whining. I like that in a man." The nastier tone startled him where the nice one had left him cold. But he still didn't turn to face her.

Very well: "Look, I just did what I had to do. I'd say I'm sorry that it hurt you, but the truth is that if it had gone according to my original plans I would have hurt you much worse. As it is, the only thing you've lost is a tenuous grip on some people you were hoping to use one day. I will tell you that you were succeeding, though. That masterful mixture of brown-nosing and manipulation? It was going to bear fruits. I happen to know that. Are you feeling better now?"

There! She had confounded him into talking!

"I was going to spend the winter holydays at Black's in London. It was going to be the first -"

The wind snatched most of the second sentence.

"The first time that you wouln´t have to return to the orphanage?" He still hadn't turned but_ that _was probably what a nod looked like from behind.

"Tell, me, what were you hoping to get out of that? The Blacks are the most tiresome type of snob. They are wizard blood-purists who have adopted practices of muggle snobbery because they recognised them as cruel. What kind of masochist are you? Ah, you've turned. I thought you had frozen to death and I was simply imagining your voice."

Tom Riddle grinned or gnashed his teeth: "Are you imagining my voice a lot, Sumshine? It wouldn't have been easy but it have been a bloody beginning. I keep loosing valuable time every year beacause I have to return to that damned place, whole months I need for my studies. "

"Dearest child, you wouldn't believe the nightmares I have about that mellifluous voice of yours. Yes, I know, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to you. What were you going to study at Black's, exactly? The Kamasutra?"

Tom sighed: "As I do not have family of my own I cannot be accepted into wizarding society proper before an established family approves of me. That approval is signaled in various ways and being invited to spend time in their home is a good one."

"Yes, fantastic. Subjecting yourself to the current hacking order in your house at school, since if do it the family way it'll have to be a family from your own house. Tom, you have several professors, among them at least one with very significant connections eating from ypur palm. Why don't you start looking for an apprenticeship? Being accepted by a Master before you finish school is a hell of an introduction."

The wind howled. Approvingly, she was sure.

"You aren't doubting your abilities, are you? You can't be half bad, you know, this warming spell that you aren't sharing is proof of that."

"Sorry Sunshine. It's Advanced Runes and something is telling me that you will missprounounce them horribly."

Hermine beamed. He had been afraid she would. It made it ever so hard to not blast her from the fucking tower.

Hermine beamed even worse. Tom didn't blast. He wanted to see how long it would take for the ice on the banisters to melt. The ice stayed icy. Miss Most Annoying Sunshine took something small and heavy out of a pocket and threw it at his feet. Once there it transformed into a fur of mamoth proportions. Surprised he looked at the crazy bitch. She was already wraping herself into another one of those. And was that a bloody picnic hamper? A cup was pushed his way:

"Hot scottish tea, if you take my meaning. Go ahead, take it. It's very nearly not poisoned."

"Whisky?"

"Exactly. Now, about Black. I really want to know that."

Instead of answering Tom sipped his tea.

Sunshinecrab did not repeat her question, neither did she say anything else. It was he who spoke first, much later:

"The fourth time we came up here I asked the Professor which charms they used as safety measures. I had not wanted to ask it, but I couldn't get used to this place. It was dark, it was always cold and most of my classmates were jumping around as if they were indestructible. The Professor told me that there were no safety nets for people who couldn't look after themselves."

Sunshinecrab smacked her forehead. "What a fucktard," she said.

"A what?"

"Never mind. Did that ingenous comment calm your classmates down?"

Tom thought about that: "Now that you mention it, it did."

"The teacher was probably waiting for a student to ask it in each class. That sardonic manner is something of a Hogwarts specialty, just like the olde englishe fare of the kitchens."

"You are probably right. Yes, I think you are. Did you get this tea at the kitchens?"

"Yes."

Pause. Then: "I take it you are afraid of heights?"

"Yes."

"What assholes," she repeated.

Tom grinned. The tea had defrosted his face and the smile looked a lot nicer than his last attempt:

"I know what that means."

"You are an unbelievably intelligent person who knows a great many interesting things already and should be learning more of them instead of studying how to please assholes like Black."

"You are using that word because you know what he wants from me," Tom said wryly. "No, don't say anything. You are from the wizarding world, it's normal for you. I know that."

"You little slimeball. I am from the wizarding world, and coercing people into sexual practices that make them uncomfortable is not what I consider normal."

"It's Black whom I mind, actually."

"And I was refering to bestiality. What did you think? But honestly, Tom. So the people who work at the orphanage preach hard word and advancement through merit, and clean living, have been repeating it daily, ever since you remember, ad infinitum et ad nauseam. Dismiss what they consider clean living, if you will. The rest of the idea is still sound."

Tom thought about the matron back at the orphanage. The one who had told him what his dying mother had said, that terrible, terrible pitty driping from every word. Pitty, because they were indeed saying the words, while their faces said clearly that hard work would not be enough. Never be enough. This pitty that was on every face of every person working there, every damned physician who looked at them, every official who came to check on them, everyone.

That damned sanctimonity. Because _they_ were doing what they could, doing their best by their difficult and ungrateful charges, and may god have mercy, or something. God, whose work they were doing, which wasn't, and would never be enough.

Later the horror, less and less concealed, when they looked at him. Admonishing the poor poor orphans about the many evils of the world. As if these children didn't know more about the world than most.

The way they glanced at him, Tom, when they spoke of evil, and how he was never allowed to keep his books and notes during the holidays. Not that he didn't. Not the matron did't suspect that, didn't monitor him in the most humiliating way.

Oh, and last summer she had arranged for time with the parson, who had, actually had the gall to caution him against overjealous learning.

"I don't think my vocabulary has anything for that order of magnitude."

Tom stared first at her, then at his cup. He hadn't just been thinking had he? "What did you put into that tea?"

"In vino veritas, in spiritu amplius. Whisky, of course."

Tom studied the cup. Just Whisky?

"You said you did what you had to do."

"Yes, but it was good booze, I promise."

"About me. That your way would have been-" He seemed to be making a decision: "What do you know about my family?"

"Aways prepared to accept the unexpected, the impossible and the disturbing and to ask yourself what they can do for you. See why I am proud of you? I know enough to tell you that your father is still alive and that you shouldn't bother with him, not even in order to change that. He isn't worth the trouble. Your mother was a witch and her brother is still alive, albeit in a very bad shape. Too many low-quality heart warmers. He doesn't know you exist, but you could go and find him. You can beat him into shape with a couple of potions. He has a place that needs some work to become really comfortable, but that won't be a problem for a talented lad like yourself. And then you will have a guardian and a place of your own, more or less, which may not sound like much, but-"

"Why are you sure he will take me in?"

His unlikely guardian angel smiled at him. "First I'll tell you what to do about your fellow students."

"Oh, them. They'll hate me. Doesn't matter, I know how to deal with that."

"This is why I said that I would tell you. You know how to deal with people in an orphanage, and with people who happen to be afraid because of what they perceive but cannot know or understand. Forget what you've learned there, it does not serve you well."

"They are mostly jealous that I am going to some posh school."

"That too. You have been taught to expect that mix of envy and fear and you expect it from everyone, even from people who met you in a fundamentaly different context and even from people who clearly admire you. Do you see how that would be detrimental to your future life?"

"Do you think you could start telling me who you are and why I am listening to you?"

"I am someone who found a dead body that was willing to work overtime, and also someone who can make that kind of deal with bodies. We specified an amount of time, and this amount of time is now running out. The magical aura is trembling, so to say, and this is why little miss Wholesome here suddenly sounds like me."

Tom considered this. If it was true then the implications were - Too many. For now. Merlin! Right, stay on track: "How do you 'persuade' a dead human body to do that?"

Not-Hermine gave him a Look: "You don't persuade a human body. Never."

Had she stressed the 'human' or the 'you', he wondered. Aloud he said: "I'll remember not to, then. Is there any more tea in that thing?"

There was and they finished it in something like amiable silence.

A couple of days later he learned that she she had left Hogwarts early in the morning two days ago. She had been pale. Clutched a letter. Of course. None of the Gryffindors knew what the letter had been about. Of course.

During the following weeks Tom would keep a certain distance his fellow Slytherins by alternating between aloofness, polite semi-interest and the occasional glare. He didn't get cozy with any other students. That would have been silly and not Slytherin at all. His attitude went well with his Professors and convinced Horace Slughorn to keep him in his little club, which, ultimately, was all the status he needed in Slytherin.

_later:_

December 24. found him standing at the entrance of a badly unkempt piece of land. The vegetation seemed to be devouring the sad remnants of a cruck cottage. The camouflage spells on the property felt familiar, but in an unaccountable way. And then a snake hissed at him, demanding he either speak or leave. This was the place, then. He hissed back at the fragment of a gate in front of him. The fragment turned into a pretty, wrought iron gate.

One step later he found himself in a wild, beautiful garden. The cottage in the middle was bigger than it had appeared, if not much,. It was old, tidy and utterly enticing. And Someone was waiting for him.

Tom nodded into the direction of the house: "Is that what you had me learning magical masonry for? I spend a week copying those stupid books."

"Did you learn the spells or did you just copy them?"

"Copy, mostly. The wandwork is rather basic and there was no place to practice the incantations."

"Too true. Well, come inside and light a fire."

"What are you burning now? Uncle Morfin?"

"How interesting that you should ask that. Morfin, it turned out, is so damaged, physically and mentally, that I found it easier to rearange him in a shape that doesn't need flesh, as such."

"What. The. Hell."

"I turned him into a tree. A living one, I am not using him for firewood. It's really better for him, and he will be available when you need to present a guardian. Honestly."

Tom looked at the person he did not know. Before leaving Hogwarts she had told him that she had to arrange for a new body as her old one would not last more than 333 hours. Why 333 hours, he had asked? She had shrugged: It had seemed as good a shortish period of time as any.

"Who, and more importantly what are you?"

The possible person produced a convincingly human mischievious smile:

"I was an idiot who messed with time and got her ancenstors killed before they had made themselves useful," she said. "It was more complicated than that, but the effect was the same."

"Tell me that you are kidding me."

"I am. I am Eris, Goddess of Discord, Chaos, Confusion and whacky architecture."

Tom looked at the house. The roof had a goat-head shaped gable.

"I'll say." Pause. "What are you really?"

"Ask me in a moment, I can't think of a third answer right now."

"Why are you here?"

"Because you were the reason I sprouted where I hadn't be sowed. Nice expression, don't you think? I found myself turned into an irreal number and then I found out that I was, against all expectations, still around . I felt like going somewhere and being something or someone. And what can I say? Messing with your brain is fun."

"I love you, too."

Whoever grinned manically:

"Aaand those were the magic words, thank you very much, kind sir, thank you _so_ much. Now I can stay and make you regret them. Oh, this is going to be fun!"

And with that she danced ahead of him into the house.

Tom looked around. The garden was really beautiful.

The goat-gable smirked at him, unless that was the way goats smiled invitingly. Why a goat, he wondered. Hogwarts was supposed to be a dragon. So much grander than a smelly beast with too many stomachs.

Whoever was standing in the doorframe: "Are you coming? Morfin wants to see you."

"He's inside? I thought he was a tree."

"A tree that remembers being human. He knows it is winter now and he remembers disliking the cold. I've cleaned a bit of floor in the living room for him. It looks good, I think. Are you coming?"

Tom looked again at the roof. The roof bleated.

"Why a goat?"

"I like them. They bugger people I do not like, don't ask me why. I think they like me, too."

Tom Riddle stepped inside.

* * *

><p><strong>Miscellanea:<strong> This little almost-a-plot fell at my feet while I was writing something else. It pretended to be quite bloodthirsty but then it turned out to be mostly cuddly, in the ordinary sense of the word. I suppose that's distraction for you.

The story is set_ before_ Riddle's discovery of the Chamber of Secrets, that is, before he commits his first murder. This is obviously a "Tom's redemption" fic _but_ it ends long before that end comes in sight. Just in case that wasn't obvious.

Young Minerva's hair colour is a tribute to Dame Maggie Smith. I liked her comparison of McGonagall and Miss Jean Brodie, but having thought about it again I believe that it's actually Dumbles who deserves that 'title'.

The time-traveller's name is partly a tribute to "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality", my introduction to fanfic, and it is awful simply because I enjoy burdening my characters.

The time-travellers _actual_ stratagem is **Deceive the heavens to cross the ocean **but she chooses to think of another as she expects Dumbles to peak into her mind. The main defence against that being the rather ...breathless structure of her thoughts.

Unless the main object _was_ to get rid of her family and Riddle is the additional goat. I wouldn't know. She did not tell me much, to tell you the truth.


End file.
